Donations Pouring from Middleville to Flint

McFall Elementary first grader Scarlette Liesenfelder isn't done helping out the people in Flint just yet. She and her family are planning another delivery of water to the east side of the state and hoping to fill an entire semi trailer.

Water can be dropped off at any of the Thornapple Kellogg schools or from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the union hall in Middleville. The items will be picked up Feb. 12 and taken to Flint Feb. 13.

It all started after Liesenfelder and her family loaded up their own vehicle a few weeks ago and took as much as they could fit in their vehicle. It wasn't nearly enough, they soon realized.

Scarlette asked her mom if they could go back and if she could enlist the help of her classmates to donate enough water to fill a larger truck. Her mother, Macenzie Smallwood, said the response was overwhelming, taking seven people more than an hour to load all the donations.

Smallwood said after making the delivery two weeks ago, she knew they had to keep trying to help.

Smallwood said they took their water to some of the poorest neighborhoods in the city and were heartbroken by the stories they heard and the scenes they witnessed. "The amount of people lined up around the truck was never ending and the stories we heard made us blink back tears while we were passing out (water)," she wrote in a Facebook post about their trip.

In addition to enlisting support from the entire Middleville community, Smallwood has started a GoFundMe account athttps://www.gofundme.com/2jgnxe5g. Funds raised from that will help offset the cost of fuel for the trips.

Smallwood said she's very happy to see the support from the Middleville community. She said she's only been in Michigan and the TK community for about two years and couldn't be more proud of the Middleville community she now calls home. "The support from the schools has just been amazing," she said.

She added Scarlette is looking forward to a return trip to Flint. “She’s thrilled. She just wants to keep helping,” she said.